Page 63 of The Shadow Wand

I follow Sparrow and Effrey toward the far end of the estate, still reeling from my encounter with Lukas’s cruel mother. We wind through countless, exquisitely appointed hallways and rooms, both my magic and my emotions as turbulent as the storm that’s gaining ground outside.

Thunder cracks, the sound reverberating through the Ironwood walls.

Lukas needs to get here soon.Evelyn Grey means to harm me in some way—I feel sure of it. I might be safe here from the forces of the East, surrounded as we are by a Mage military presence, but I’m not safe from the Mages.

But if I find Lukas, will he even consent to protect me?

We come to an Ironflower-embossed wooden door at the far end of a sitting room that’s also a small library. Sparrow opens the door, and I go still at its threshold, my gaze transfixed by the bedroom’s sizable, four-poster, canopied bed. It’s topped with a luxurious emerald tree–patterned quilt, but that’s not what captures my eyes and my magic. It’s the canopy’s posts I’m drawn to—dense columns of deep black wood, rising in smooth spirals.

Like four colossal wands.

Captivated, I step toward the bed and run my hand along the enticing wood, power simmering at my heels as a massive tree with a thickly corded trunk fills my mind and I draw in a deep, languid breath.

Ishkartan Ebony.

Oh, this is a nice wood. Dense and strong.My fireline gives a warm flare, heat sizzling through my lines.It would be so easy to send magic through it...

A flash of alarm seizes me, and I wrench my hand from the wood, my pulse quickening over how easily the wood pulls me under. I surreptitiously grasp my wand hand with the other and dig my nails into my palm, attempting to quell the almost irresistible lure of the luxurious wood.

And the almost irresistible desire to release my power.

I drag my gaze away from the bed in an effort to distract myself from the great temptation, and find Sparrow and Effrey drawing back deep-green curtains to reveal rain-battered windows, making me feel exposed to whatever could be lurking out there.

Hunting me.

“You can leave those closed,” I hastily say to them, only to be met by a brief look of startled fear from Effrey followed by a slight, cautious nod from Sparrow as she draws the curtains once more. “Thank you,” I amend, swallowing. “Thank you for your help.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Mage,” Sparrow neutrally responds as she and Effrey secure the curtain ties in tidy coils.

“I’ve met you before, you know.” I press Sparrow in the least threatening tone I can muster as I clench and unclench my wand hand. “You were at Mage Heloise’s dress shop. In Valgard. Several months ago.”

“It’s true, Mage,” Sparrow says, her expression dauntingly blank.

Reluctant to make them feel any more uncomfortable than I already have, I let the line of conversation drop and shrug my travel bag off my shoulder, then set it down on the silk-cushioned chair beside me, the cushion’s fabric embroidered with an oak-leaf design. There’s an intricately woven rug under my feet that mirrors the rich colors of the bed, forest greens and midnight black entwined into stylized trees. A guilty frustration swells over how much I’m drawn in by the overabundance of forest decor and dead wood in this room. I don’t want to be so typically Gardnerian. I don’t want any part of the wretched Magedom.

Instead, I want to crack one of those posts off the bed and fight the Gardnerians with it.

A crack of thunder cuts into my rebellious thoughts, and I glance around the room. Two doors near the bed are open, one leading to a small changing room, the other to servants’ quarters. The cool air seeping in around the bedroom’s windowpanes is being held back by the lush warmth emanating from an iron woodstove that faces the bed, its iron wrought into the shape of a tree, pipe chimneys branching up and over the ceiling. The room is tastefully decorated with paintings of deer in a deep forest and more of Mage Evelyn’s seemingly beloved vases—vases that seem more important to her than the people working in her household.

I frown at the vase closest to me, made of parchment-thin onyx-glazed porcelain with a hand-painted scene depicting the slaying of an Icaral by several Mage soldiers.

I want to knock it clear off the table and watch it shatter into tiny, unfixable bits.

Sparrow brings my travel bag to the bed, sets it on the tree quilt, and moves to open it.

Anxiety swiftly overtakes me.

“I’ll unpack my things,” I say as I take a quick step toward Sparrow. I can’t risk her finding the Wand—and possibly handing it over to Lukas’s loathsome mother.

Which would immediately raise questions regarding why, exactly, I’m armed without the Council approval that is required of all Mages. Especially women.

Sparrow gives me an odd look as she acquiesces and instead begins turning down the bedsheets and quilt.

My heart thudding against my chest, I open the travel sack and lift my sparse belongings from it, piece by piece, placing them neatly on the bed. Then I fasten the sack and slide it far under the bed.

“I’d like that kept there,” I say, pointing underneath the bed while hating my dominant position over the two of them. They both nod in solemn deference, which only notches my remorse higher.

They shouldn’t be here.Not with the Gardnerians about to ship every last Urisk to the Fae Islands in a matter of months to remove non-Gardnerians from “Mage soil.” I look to skinny Effrey, who’s busy placing my clothes in the drawers of a nearby dresser, my outrage on her behalf rising.

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